


Horse of a Different Color

by ParadoxR



Series: E Pluribus Unum [3]
Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Awkwardness, Beginnings, F/M, Military Backstory, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2744867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Jack O’Neill, a ridiculously gorgeous blonde doctor is currently staring at your ear.</em> Too bad said ear is busy expertly not-glaring at some schmuck at the bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Going to Be Hopeless

**Author's Note:**

> Rated for Jack’s especially colorful cursing. This is an SJ OTP fic (and series, also author). Thank you to my beta, bethanyactually.

“So, Captain.” Talk to me. “How’s our favorite sergeant?” Jack picks up his fork as her dinner arrives.

Sam quirks her head at the colonel. “Siler, sir? He’s holding up. Most of his shift is brand new, though.”

“Right, that’s tough.” Jack tries to nod without saying ‘and completely my fault.’ “But they were able to fix…whatever’s broken?” _No, she doesn’t think that’s funny; you just sound stupid._

Sam pauses over her dinner again. “They ran into some trouble in section 20D,” _and didn’t call me._ “But I’ll have it sorted out by Sunday. I wanted to let his shift rest.”

Jack makes himself nod again. It’s his safest expression, at least if his first ten years of marriage were any indication. “Won’t need it before then?”

Sam forces herself to chew slowly rather than retort. This isn’t her first rodeo, Colonel, thank you. ‘Lieutenant Carter’ got her first command at twenty-two just like everybody else.

“Never mind.” Nod. “Good call.” _Because she’s a senior company grade officer with three commands and a combat tour, and you don’t even know what’s in Section 20D?_ He really wasn’t this much of a micromanager before they took his Division and shoved him onto a four-person team.

“Thank you. Sir.” She bites.

“I’m sure you’re right, Sam.” Jack fidgets with the fork. Her name sounds nice.

Charlie tries to imagine how far he’d get thrown if he mimed cutting their tension with a knife. Probably pretty far. “So, Samantha.” He opts for ‘charming smile’. “Plans for the weekend?”

She looks across the table at him. That sounded almost innocent. “I don’t know this unit very well, sir.” ‘At all’ would also fit there. “That’s a priority. I need to be working on morale and welfare.” She tries to keep the last part directed at Charlie but it ends up going sideways towards the colonel.

And now the junior officer is textbook-lecturing Jack on effective supervision. He should really answer that. But if it makes her feel any better after he destabilized the galaxy and blew up her program, he’s finding it hard to confront her. This is sort of his retirement party anyway. Jack lets his eyes wander over to the bar.

“So hanging out on base all weekend, then?” Charlie smiles before he realizes Jack’s given up.

“I’m not sure ‘hanging out’ is the correct term, sir. The decommissioning crew is having a rough time.” Sam shoots another accidental glare at the inattentive colonel.

Charlie winces. “Of course.” And ‘rough’ was before one of them got abducted by a sadistic alien god-king. “You gonna be alright with them?”

Sam’s eyes flash to his. “Major, just because I work in a technical field doesn’t mean I can’t lead a flight.” She’s a captain, for Chrissake. Can’t they just let her work?

Charlie lets himself look surprised. Jeez. “It wasn’t an insult, Sam. It sounds difficult.” Or whatever adjective you use for uniting a bunch of bored young airmen and jaded civilian scientists into confronting the potential enslavement of Earth. Jack would know, if he were paying any freaking attention.

Sam blows out a shaky breath. “Yes, well. That’s what we get paid for, isn’t it?” Unless the Air Force started paying its officers _not_ to lead airmen when she wasn’t looking. That would explain some of her present company.

Charlie suppresses his frustrated eye roll for her. “True as usual, Captain. But anytime you need something…” He smiles. Poor kid must be terrified.

Sam gulps her dinner. She’s got this. Really, she’ll be fine. It’ll be like the Giza lab, only… _only stop pissing off people who might help you, Captain. _“Thank you.” She sighs. “Really.”

“No problem.” Charlie grins. _Earth to Jack O’Neill._

Jack glances at the center of their table. “Yeah.” To whatever they’re talking about. Something about low-morale leadership. Which she would probably put on him if he were listening. _Correctly._ Jack finds something to glare at peripherally. There’s this guy at the bar who’s really starting to piss him off.

Sam looks at the colonel in surprise. He sounded almost sad. _The man did destabilize the galaxy with a tactical nuke, Sam. …Yes, so stop staring at him._

Charlie coughs. “So.” The captain blinks into her plate. “Anything you want to talk about?”

 _What?!_ Oh. Charlie, right. “No.” _Wait, what?_ “Or…what’re the action items?”

Charlie lightens his smirk. _Distracted, Captain?_ Finally. “Sorry, Sam. We do advice, but not working dinners. House rule.” _Jack O’Neill, a ridiculously gorgeous blonde doctor is currently staring at your ear._ Too bad said ear is busy expertly not-glaring at some schmuck at the bar.

“Oh. Right, sorry.” Sam chews quickly. She really ought to get going. There’s a lot of work to do. _Start dissecting the staff weapon._ And write up the mission. And plan DHD training. Every SG member will need at least basic cross-training: diagnosing numerous failures, radii for employing common explosives, dangers of direct and indirect fire, secondary risks to the SGC… And then if it breaks: risks of a dialing attempt, manual dialing options, potential for repair, estimated time and resources. And what kind of resources? She’ll need to completely overhaul of the gear lists, not to mention new SOPs and integration with tactical maneuvers. Expect a month of training for every new SG team, more for the engineers, just based on the first two missions. And that’s without all the tactical issues for Gate security, reconnaissance limitations, and planet navigation that she doesn’t understand at all. It’s going to be a long weekend.

Charlie almost laughs. Jack’s fidgeting with his fork; Sam’s doodling with hers. Their grandkids are going to be hopeless.


	2. Far Safer Visual

“Sam.”

_Huh?_

“No working dinners also means no work distractions.” Charlie’s pretty sure that’s what’s bothering her anyway. As opposed to Jack’s distraction of her ass and the guy at the bar who likes it.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Charlie smiles. “No problem. Not exactly the social butterfly, eh?” He shoves at Jack’s boot. “Me neither.”

Jack blinks and almost kicks him back. _‘Social butterfly?’_

Sam tries to shrug comfortably. “Actually, I’m basically the most social person I work with.” _D’oh._ “Social as in…” As in she didn’t sleep her way into this job, so _stop smirking_ like that, Major.

“Yeah.” Jack waves her off calmly. As if those rumors about her were true. But who _is_ that fucking guy?

Sam carefully studies her water glass. So much for getting through a dinner without someone picturing her with her pants off. She really does have a penchant for embarrassment around guys like this.

“Sooo…” Charlie watches them not look at each other. “What do you do in DC?” Funny how a dangerous alien god-king cuts into his pool of casual questions.

Sam blinks. “Me?…I’m an action officer in Programs and Evaluation.”

For her benefit, Charlie attempts not to snort. It stings a little. “I meant for fun, Sam. It’s a thing that people sometimes do when they—”

She closes her eyes. “I know what ‘fun’ is, sir.”

Good, because Charlie’s not quite sure how he was going to finish that sentence. But it probably would’ve upset Jack.

Sam sighs. “I read a lot. And the Pentagon’s got a nice gym.” That sounds innocuous enough, right?

“Yes, it does. You swim there? Hockey?” Charlie’s about to hit Jack if that doesn’t get his attention.

Jack doesn’t look away from the nothingness he’s studying beside the bar. _Hockey and swimming, really?_ Apparently someone’s proclaimed it ‘torture Jack’ day in Charlie-land.

 _Hockey?_ “I’m getting back into gymnastics.” And quickly finishing her dinner, thank God.

Okay, hockey would’ve been a far safer visual.

“Cool. What’s your event?” Charlie grins broadly.

 _You walked right into this discussion._ “And I shoot at Quantico. Silver rifle.” New rule, fully-clothed activities only. Maybe she can stop blushing for a few seconds tonight.

“Nice. But in gymnas—”

“No one’s trying to test you, Sam.” Jack smiles, though not by looking at her. He is hereby limiting this discussion to fully-clothed activities. “Read anything good lately?” He is going to picture that as a fully-clothed activity. Somehow.

 _Thank you._ “I thought _Collective Phenomena in Quantum Optics_ was pretty solid.” Sam immediately pretends she didn’t mean that as a joke.

Jack nods. _Well that went well._ “Good.” Who the heck is he kidding? The asshole at the bar is definitely more on his level.

Yeah, clearly the wrong crowd for that one. “And I appreciated the _Current and Future Capabilities_ handbook.”

Jack blinks at her. _She…?_ “Don’t.” It’s a clipped answer. “Lance doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Twenty years in special ops keeps Jack’s voice conversational. Those guys are assholes.

Sam’s eyes pull towards him. “I’ll…yes, sir.” _Who are you?_

Charlie catches his own eyebrows. It’s not often that Jack decides to show his hand publicly. And so much for Charlie’s second master’s degree maybe explaining how Jack thinks.

Her bemused expression tugs upwards at Jack’s scowl. _Because it’s gorgeous on her?_ He is a colonel, at least. With two more masters’ than she has PhDs. _Yeah, and sixteen more years. You’re rebounding on a twenty-eight-year-old that’ll make colonel five years before you did_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sure no real author in the C&F Handbook is actually an ass. (This is a Jack backstory thing I’m still tweaking.)
> 
> Sarkesian, Sam Charles, and Robert E. Connor, eds. _America's armed forces: a handbook of current and future capabilities_. Greenwood Pub Group, 1996. Agarwal, Girish S. _Selected papers on resonant and collective phenomena in quantum optics_. SPIE Optical Engineering Press, 1995.
> 
> Sam made colonel faster than the last four Air Force Chiefs of Staff did.


	3. No One Special

“Is that all you do out in DC?” Charlie asks lightly.

Sam eyes him a little worriedly. Actually, she’s spent a good chunk of her free over the time last year thinking of every way she hates these two people. That’s…getting more difficult.

“No one special at home?” He finishes just as lightly.

She should’ve eyed him more worriedly. “Not currently.”

_ Crap.  _ And yet Jack looks again. Yep, still gorgeous when embarrassed. He really needs to stop checking that.

“Me neither. Lou’s the only one in our crowd who does.” Charlie personally feels that this was sufficiently casual. So he really wishes Jack would stop twisting his ankle.

Sam had not even considered the thought that the colonel was single. “Huh.” And that was sufficiently nonchalant.

_ Stop. Looking.  _ Jack’s actually caught on her reflection, but it’s not much more discreet. Plus, he now has the overwhelming urge to save her from whatever stupid thing Charlie’s going to say next. Granted, he feels that around most women Charlie gets near. “So.” _…Good start._

Sam manages not to turn towards him. She looks at her plate. _You are never sitting next to a CO ever again._

“…You like the snapper in DC?”

_ The who?  _ “Sir?”

“The fish, Captain. Do you like the seafood places in DC?”

Oh. She shrugs. “Never been.”

_ Anywhere?  _ “You should try it sometime. McCormick’s is good.”

“Thank you.” _Did he just…?_ No. He…what?

Jack nods. “Just north of the Mall.” He really is smooth enough to have asked her out in there. Apparently he’s just not very smooth at _not_ asking her out in there. Jack hasn’t seen Charlie look this disappointed since Amsterdam in ‘89.

“Thank you.” _Told you he wasn’t going to._ She really does have a knack for this embarrassment stuff. _You should leave._ “I should—”

“Where do you usually eat in town?” Charlie stops shy of reaching for her as she squirms. _Nice going, Jack._

Sam pushes back into her seat reluctantly and tries to smile. “I’m mostly a takeout and boiled pasta person, to be honest.”

“Don’t like to cook?” Charlie asks before a bite. They’re all close to finished with their dinners.

“Rather not.” _Jonas_ liked her to cook. Another reason the world is a better place with them apart.

“That’s my philosophy. As long as you can eat it, I always say.” Charlie smiles without looking at Jack.

Jack nods to the nothingness beside the bar. He could cook for them. _Wait, what?_

Sam nods again and tries not to fidget with the zipper on her jacket.

And now the lanky git from from the barstool is coming over here. Jack turns forward blankly. _Well maybe next time don’t not-glare at him incessantly._ The guy looks like an ass. Nothing a good sweeping hip throw can’t handle.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should admit that I choose combative moves based on what’s sufficiently advanced, vaguely fits, and sounds good in context.


	4. Doesn't She Wish

“Hey, Fox.”

 _‘Fox’?_ Yes, definitely a sweeping hip throw. Asshole.

Sam chokes. “Will! Hi!”

_Shit._

She sets down her glass. “What’re you doing here?”

_Shit, shit, shit._

“I’m stationed at the Test Center.” Will glances nervously at the man who’s been glaring at him. “Figured I should say hi. Didn’t mean to interrupt.” He refrains from actually saying ‘you looked like you needed saving’.

“Oh, I was just—” leaving. Except the colonel’s not moving, and she’s stuck.

“We’re just having dinner.” Charlie explains obviously. He nurses his…water. Jack may have had a point about this guy.

Will nods pleasantly. “You’re friends of Jonas’s.” Fighter pilot rule one, do not piss off your Combat Rescue Officers. Or whatever spec ops these guys are into.

Sam blanches. “Uh, no.” Cough. “Um, retirement dinner.” _Phew._

“Oh.” _Phew._ “Congratulations, sir.” Will directs it at the presumably full colonel sitting next to her.

Jack does not appreciate the speed of that deduction. Charlie looks old enough, too. “Thanks.” And who the hell is ‘Jonas’?

Sam glances nervously around the world-collision in front of her. “Um, sir, this is Major Denis Villiers. Will, Colonel O’Neill. Will and I met when I short-coursed at Test Pilot School. He was my…”

 _Boyfriend. Say boyfriend._ Except he’s not acting like an ex. And they don’t use first names. Jack waits calmly.

“Chauffeur.” Will supplies with a grin and a more clearly French Canadian accent. “Fox was doing something funky with the Experimental Aerospace Vehicle short course. Très high-Gs. Made for some good fun for me, though!” No one reacts. Will smiles at her and starts realizing just how bad her sunburn is and how uncomfortably she’s sitting.

Sam blanches a little more under the three gazes. She runs a hand through her hair. “Will’s a test pilot.” She supplies into the dead air.

And the lanky git’s eyes dance over her like a cat chasing a fly. Jack hates cats. Oh shit.

Sam drops her hand quickly as Will’s gaze follows. Her left hand. Which is empty. Right.

Will coughs into the silence. “That was, ahem, very discreet of me.”

Sam swallows.

She was _engaged_ to Jonas? _She might be okay with divorcés._ Shut up.

“He’s an idiot.” Will corrects quickly.

Clearly. _Shut up._

Oh, doesn’t she wish.

Apparently Charlie is the only one with the presence of mind to catch Sam’s ‘now’s a nice time for that potential alien invasion’ wince. “So you’re a bus driver, huh?” Charlie mocks traditionally.

“Sir!” Sam’s shifts from blush and blanch again.

Will smiles hurriedly. “With Sam. But I think of myself more as a ‘bus crasher’ these days. And a desk rider, but aren’t we all?”

Charlie huffs.

No bonding over that then, all right. “Enjoy your captain years while you can, Fox. There’s no escaping the desk afterwards.”

Sam keeps her hands clasped in her lap. “Will, I pulled a two tours at the Pentagon as a captain.”

He winces. “Ouch.” And pauses. “Sam, I’m sorry.”

It’s _way_ too sincere for Jack’s silent taste.

“But hey, I’m actually an assistant ops director in the Operational Test Center.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Will, that’s great!” _Thank God._ Maybe she will make it through this after all.

Three years later and he still cannot stop smiling around her. “Yeah. Seriously, Sam, you’re gonna be fine. I’m sure you’ll make it.”

Charlie watches the bus driver and Sam share a look. Annoying. “Make it…?’” He prompts after a beat.

Will nods amiably. “Through her PhD; I did mine at Stanford a little later in my career than Sam did hers. Too many good people miss promotions and get booted because we’re out of command for those years.” He smiles. “But I’m not too worried about Sam. Especially not if she’s working with trigger-pulling folks like you,” he offers over-brightly.

“Oh.” _Darn._ “This is a temporary assignment.” Sam still doesn’t know where to look, and the colonel’s staying entirely mute.

Will’s eyebrows shoot up. She sounds disappointed. “Really? You know you could cross-train. You’ve still got a little time, _mon Capitaine_. Window’s closing!”

Sam manages a smile in her head shake. “I’m good, Will. But thank you as always.”

 _Hah! Err,_ Jack blinks. _Hah._

Will nods less jocularly. “Yeah. I always knew you missed this stuff. I’m really proud of you, Sam. You look like you got what you wanted.”

 _An alien invasion of Earth?_ Sam smiles too tightly. “Hope so.”

“And you look great.”

 _Shut it, flyboy._ Jack keeps his knee from tapping.

Sam chokes. “Um, yeah. Rough week.” She manages not to scratch her bandaged shoulder.

Will’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry.”

Again, way, way too sincere.

“…Though actually, I meant your arm,” Will clarifies.

 _Oh. D’oh._ “Uh, yeah. Good as new.”

“That’s great, Sam.” It’s an-overly toothy smile. “You’re gonna do great things.” Then he clears his throat.

Jack glares meaningfully at flyboy’s shoulder.

“How long you in town for?”

Damn.


	5. Do Your Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an OTP fic. (But Sam's known Jack for like four days and has good reason to be disgusted with him.)

Sam tries to shrug. “Monday for now.”

 _Darnit._ “Okay. Maybe we could talk—I’m still testing. The job’s classified, but I’ve got some pretty cool stuff on the periphery.” He pauses. “I’m sure you do, too.”

“Actually—” yes. She’s gotten pretty desperate for a sounding board since the Giza shutdown.

“We’re working this weekend. It’s a short assignment,” Charlie explains. _Come on, Jack, play ball._

“That’s my Sam.” Will smiles too quickly. “Working every weekend since the moment I met her.” _Dang._ “All right. But hey, give me a call whenever you miss Mach two instead of rucking at twenty minutes a mile, Fox.”

“Fourteen.” Jack corrects. And wouldn’t he love to strap at least fifty pounds on flyboy’s back and prove it. _As if you could still keep up a fourteen, you washed-up ass._

Will turns back to them. “My apologies, Colonel.”

 _He was leaving._ “Bet it looks the same at fifty thousand feet.” Jack shrugs too heatedly.

Will nods. “Oh yeah. Sam knows I’m far smoother at Mach two than on any ground course.”

“Major, why the _hell_ would the military make pilots who are ‘smooth’ on ground courses?” Whatever the fuck flyboy thinks a ‘ground course’ is. Presumably anything that shoots back at you when you’re stuck moving on the ground. Good luck taking on the Goa’uld with your nineteen days of survival training, flyboy.

Will blinks. “They don’t pay us to do your job, sir.”

Jack’s eyes flash. “Major, if I could be replaced with a pilot after _six years_ on foreign ‘ground courses’, I’m doing something really fucking wrong.” Hell, his boss and his entire Major Command would be doing something really fucking wrong. It’s his job to prevent shit like that. _It was your job. You lost it._

“Probably better that you stay in your cockpit.” Charlie elaborates with markedly less antagonism. _You knew Jack was still unstable._

“That’s what Combat Rescue Officers are for, right?” Will grates in return.

Jack glares over the man’s shoulder.“‘That others may live.’” He takes in a grim breath. Colonel Jack O’Neill isn’t about to fight some pogue major over…whatever it was. Not when it comes to the lives and deaths of own his airmen.

“Sir.” Will pulls himself back further. “Colonel, I fireballed knocking out an Iraqi artillery site in Khafji. The special ops unit it was pinning down saved my life.” _Breathe._ “I’d never pretend to do their job, sir, and I apologize if I offended you.”

Jack checks the man’s eyes quickly and nods. _Control your fucking temper,  Colonel._

Sam coughs. _Dammit, Colonel._ “Um, so.” She needs to work with Will. “Actually, Will, I was just thinking—going to call you.”

“You—you were?”

 _Oh yeah, that helped._ “Yeah, I just published an article in _Nuclear Physics_ : Dyson Pairs and—”

“—and Zero-Mass Black Holes,” he finishes.

Her eyebrows jump. “You read it?”

“Six times.” Flyboy’s smiling again immediately. Jack manages not to make himself sick on it. “Still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Welcome to our lives.” Jack makes himself lounge back against their bench. The one he’s sharing with Sam, who’s locked in two feet to his left. But it feels good.

She gulps down her wince. “Was it really that obscure?”

Will nods. And then stutters. “Yes. Err, well…no. What did you need?” He did do his doctoral dissertation in high-g computational fluid dynamics. Not that it got him past her first thirty thermodynamic equations.

 _Fuck._ Jack forces himself not to move. _He’s a test pilot with a fucking doctorate from Stanford, you idiot._ He cannot believe he fell for that from a freaking bus driver.

“I’m happy with the article, but I’m trying to understand how to stabilize the negative-mass cosmic string such that the Lorentzian rotation…”

Will smirks bemusedly.

Okay, so she may be slightly too excited about the sounding board. Sam snags two coasters. She did do two tours leading interdisciplinary teams. “I think we’re working in an unstable vacuum that isn’t automatically aligning the openings of the wormhole.” She gestures emphatically. “Theoretically, this would increase the amplitude of the gravity waves and trip the quantum flow into turbulence. I think there’s an analytical adjustment based on surface curvature; I just don’t know how to find it.”

Will drops his look and nods interestedly.

Jack doesn’t move.

“I’m wondering if I can model it as a growing capillary-gravity wave and implement turbulent flow simulations.”

“Wow, interesting.” Will furrows his brow thoughtfully. “So what you’re saying is, you want someone to sit and smile encouragingly while you continue to censor yourself about high g-forces in stabilizing Lorentzian wormholes.”

Sam winces. “Um…”

“How’s oh-nine hundred?”

Her mouth flaps involuntarily.

“At the aero club.” Will clarifies.

_Shove it, flyboy._

_Oh boy._ “Will,” Sam smiles nervously. _What are you so nervous about? … DO NOT look at O’Neill._

“Aw, come on, Sam. Breakfast at the aero club, talking Lorentzian g-force stabilization with a PhD fighter test pilot in an acrobatic plane? It’ll be just like working but more fun.”

Jack’s not sure Charlie has _ever_ studied him this hard outside of a mission. _For cryin’ out loud man, she’s just a girl._ Let her go play with her plane.

“…I can get us an Extra 300L model.” He sketches a tailslide maneuver so long Jack’s sure he’s compensating for something.

 _Whoa._ Sam exhales and nods. It’s work. She needs this. _What difference does it make?_ “Then thank you for your time.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine hundred.”

It is a really fucking toothy smile.

She blows out a breath. “If you’re driving, I’m flying.”

Flyboy grins victoriously. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Jack cannot be imagining the saunter in his walk right now.

 _He’s a cute fighter test pilot with a Stanford doctorate that’s had a crush on you since you were engaged._ What the heck is wrong with her all of a sudden? “I’m at Cheyenne,” she calls after him.

Will turns back and nods. “ _Pas de problème, Mademoiselle._ ”

Jack had almost forgotten about the Frenchie part. Yeah, well. _La vie resonne toujours plus vrai en français._ Asshole.

“And you’re sure you want to fly an Extra 300?” Frenchie teases noxiously.

Sam turns back and feels her tired nod. “Yes, thank you. I guess I’m just a little beat.” _In the very literal sense._

Jack’s stomach clenches, but he doesn’t move.

Will winces for her. “But you’re up for it?” She nods more clearly. “Great. This’ll be fun.” He tracks the colonel’s lost gaze. “And you still look incredible, Sam.” _Huh._ “You always do.” _Always with the special ops guys._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Everything sounds more sophisticated in French.’ If you squint really hard, this is how Sam made the Stargate ride smoother after CotG. Alternatively, you can discuss how incredibly loose I’m playing with the physics I don’t understand. That’d be fun, too.  
> Font, Gabriel Ivan. “Tangential fuselage blowing on an ogive cylinder.” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1992). Gibbons, G. W., and D. A. Rasheed. “Dyson pairs and zero mass black holes.” _Nuclear Physics B_ 476, no. 3 (1996): 515-547.


	6. Except That It Has

Sam puts her hand in her lap and stares at it firmly. Stupid hand. _Says the doctor of theoretical astrophysics._

“So…” Charlie pauses probably too dramatically. “‘Fox’ and ‘Will,’ huh?

Sam locks in and nods stiffly. “They’re just call signs, sir. ‘ _Vill_ iers,’ so—”

“So, ‘Will.’ Yeah, got that one.” Woefully uncreative. “But ‘Fox’?”

Stiff nod. “As in ‘crazy’—”

“‘Crazy like a’,” Jack finishes with her. He can tell himself that.

“Yes, sir.” Or so she needs to continuously persuade herself.

Charlie taps his bread knife and wonders if he really should physically cut their tension. “What happened to your arm?”

Sam glances at it stupidly. “Oh. It’s fine.” Her shrug doesn’t shake Charlie’s question. “I shattered it crashing into a mountain in Sinjar,” she finishes quickly.

Jack lets himself react to that one. “Ouch.” _Read her fucking file. _ “But you got a PhD out of it.” He finally gets a connection before it’s shoved in his face.

Sam nods rigidly at his indifference. “The Air Force doesn’t typically train you for a job and then let you leave during the initial service commitment, sir.”

Jack’s head bobs stupidly. “Glad you’re healed.” _You couldn’t’ve opened with that?_

He better believe it.“Back to full strength. Gymnastics,” _d’oh_ “pull-ups—”

“Arm wrestling,” Jack inserts in understanding. “I get that now.”

God, _why_ had she said that? “Yes.” Ahem. “That one sounds a little odd out of context.”

“No problem.” _Why are you still looking at her?_ He needs to learn to stop while he’s…blamed for destabilizing the galaxy.

Charlie coughs. Jack’s deliberately zoned out on them again. Of course, it has the benefit of keeping Sam from getting up. “I didn’t know you could fly.” He segues brightly.

Sam blinks. “It’ll be a lesson.” So much for ‘Daddy’s little astronaut.’ “I’ve barely flown since the Academy club, and I’ve never set foot in an Extra 300.” And she really ought to leave. But it’ll be easier not running into Will outside.

“You headed out?” Jack realizes suddenly. _Of course she is, idiot. Stand. Up._

Sam blinks and nods without actually moving. “Yes, sir.”

Jack looks straight ahead and nods casually. “Need a ride?” _Say yes._ Or no. One of those answers is definitely better for him.

“I took my bike.” _‘Sir,’ say—_ “Sir. Colonel.” Sam swallows. Because she’s answering Colonel O’Neill, the senior officer that blew up their galaxy and then lied about it. _It’s not that hard to remember, Sam._

“You _biked_ from Cheyenne?” Charlie asks in genuine surprise.

Sam finally shifts on the bench. “It’s not that kind of bike, sir.”

The image almost keeps Jack from standing.

“Actually, it’s not mine.” Sam slides past the retirement gifts and tries not to get too close as the colonel moves away. “A friend at Fort Carson dropped it off for me, asked me to check a leak in his tank.”

Jack nods without looking at her. “You gonna have time to fix it?”

Sam nods to the table. “It’s a simple crack; I’ll drop by the hobby shop before I give it back to him.” Not sure why Hutton couldn’t do that himself.

Jack suddenly wonders how many guys at Fort Carson _wouldn’t_ puncture their tank to get Sam Carter on their bike. Jack’s probably at the end of a very long line. Not that that he didn’t know that. Not that there’s a line. _Not that you’re in it?_

Charlie stays seated. Sam can leave, but Jack’s not running away that easily. “So what kind of bike do you have back in DC, Fox?”

“1940 Indian,” she answers quickly and ignores the call sign. She hands the colonel two twenties without looking at him.

Jack tries not to react immediately to her hand bumping into his. Oh. “You don’t need to—”

“I’m paying for it, Sam,” Charlie cuts in quickly. “I wanted to cover Jack’s party.” Retirement party, but Jack looks old enough right now without him saying that again.

She should contemplate not accepting that offer, but she doesn’t. “Will that be all, gentlemen?”

Jack is still successfully not looking at her. “That’ll be all.” He manages a nod through the mask of formality.

“Thank you for dinner; good evening.” _‘Congratulations, sir. It’s been a pleasure serving with you.’_ Except that it hasn’t. Except that it has. Sam squares her stride and walks out.


	7. Start Fighting Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Will you sleep with me tonight?’ is the chorus of 1974’s “Lady Marmalade” (among other uses).

Jack seriously considers fleeing immediately, but he really doesn’t want to run into the captain outside. _Right, you don’t want to watch that woman climb on a motorcycle. _And leave him, on someone else’s bike. He sits down.

It’s kind of a relief, really. Jack had been wondering all of last year how else the world was going to punish him. Apparently it’s by watching a brilliant, gorgeous, leggy blonde captain lead the programming of a five-thousand-year-old ring, help win two alien battles, and then ride out of his life on a ’40 Indian.

Suddenly that’s not at all funny.

Charlie studies his best friend with a practiced eye. Jack looks…defeated. “ _Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?_ ” He mocks in calculation. It hits, in that it earns him a glare rather than a sulk.

 _“Je t’emmerde.”_ Jack sees no need to translate that, despite Charlie’s French coming solely from 1970s pop songs.

The major mocks a grimace. “Oh, come on, Jack.” _You have to start fighting again._ “You had your chance before he did. Personally, I’m all for taking a sledgehammer to your gas tank.”

Jack certainly hadn’t thought of that. Besides, his Harley is brand new, an impulse ‘no one gives a shit if I crack my skull open now’ buy the day Sara served the papers. It’s probably still under warranty.

“I’m sure a good shattering would get her to come over. She fixes it, you take her to the gym, dinner at McCormick’s Seafood,” Charlie rolls his eyes. “You can pretend not to debate the latest doctrine, get to see what’s under that warmup suit, maybe a nice evening jog along the Mall…” Suddenly it’s not teasing anymore.

Charlie shuts up.


	8. This Is My Favorite Part

**Fifteen Years Later:**

“Luuucy!”

 _Oh, fer cryin’…_ Sam rolls over and glares at the clock. Oh. “Hey.” Yawn.

“Hey yourself, sleepyhead.”

“Jack, it’s 0200 in Geneva.”

“And you are currently in Minnesota. General.”

“Exactly.” Sam’s head bounces back onto the pillow. She will always relish the ability to be flip with the Secretary-General of the entire united congress.

“I gotcha something.” Jack sinks down next to her and does an excellent impression of the puppy that _‘absolutely, positively never’_ sleeps in this bed.

Sam resigns herself to the land of the conscious and rolls over. “ _Collective Phenomena in Quantum Optics_?”

Jack nods proudly. “Took ages to find it.”

“Umm…thanks.” She takes the huge volume sleepily and sets it next to them.

“You gonna read it?” He tries not to bounce impatiently, but Sam’s eyes roll at him anyway. She still enjoys doing that far too much. And it’s completely adorable. As adorable as someone in Hammond’s old job can get, anyway.

“Jack, this has got to be five hundred pages. And” Sam flips it open, “the latest papers are from the ’90s. I probably knew some of them were wrong then.” She closes it and runs her hand along the massive cover. That glint in his eye just keeps getting brighter.

“Yeah.” He pouts. “Never hurts, though.”

She refuses to move. “And I have two theses and a dissertation to review this weekend. In the morning.” She emphasizes, not bothering to guess how he’s going to make her do this.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“How much the list of ridiculous things I do for you has changed since back then? No, I remember.” She considers thawping him with her pillow, but it’s far too comfortable.

“You told me you’d read it after our first mission.” He pulls off his sweater and stretches out next to her.

 _Oookaay._ “Sounds like a good time.”

“Actually, it was ‘solid’,” he quotes sagely into her shoulder.

Sam snorts involuntarily.

He still doesn’t get it, but he’s been waiting fifteen years to feel that particular laugh against his jaw.

She sighs. “So you want to watch me read it again.” She lets his hand join hers on the cover. “For…posterity?”

“Charlie wanted to talk about your floor routine.” Jack feels her heat slightly against him. She’s long since stopped blushing visibly, but he can still feel it in her neck. He doesn’t miss the years where she didn’t blush and he couldn’t do that. “So you said you’d earned silver rifle at Quantico.”

Sam turns into his gaze. Good memory. “I wasn’t exactly up for filling Charlie’s head with images of my half-naked, twenty-eight-year-old self.”

Jack picks up the book determinedly. “It wasn’t Charlie I was worried about.”

Sam smirks. “Yeah, well maybe I was okay with filling _your_ head.” She smiles cheekily and tangles her fingers into his hair.

“No you weren’t.” He plops it down squarely on her stomach.

“No, I absolutely was not.” She lets her boldness slip into humor. Oh, that poor, terrified captain leading a science flight within a special ops unit.

“So you said this was ‘solid’.” He pokes the incomprehensible volume.

Sam preempts her snort this time. What’re the odds her Secretary had trouble picturing that as a fully clothed activity back in the day?

“And then that git Will showed up,” Jack grouses into her neck.

Sam feigns upset. “You _like_ Will.”

“Sure, _now_.” He huffs from behind her. “Back then he was a schmuck.”

“Oh, and why’s that?” She throws a mock Athosian choke around his neck and brings him in to kiss her.

Fifteen years and he still can’t tell if she really doesn’t get it. “Because he could be with you.” He rolls over to add a kiss to her hand. Her left hand.

Sam’s smile flutters into his chest. “So now you’re a schmuck?”

Jack splays his fingers over hers on the hardbound cover. “Luckiest schmuck ever.” She sighs pleasantly under him. “So…”

“So you found the book.” Sam finishes for him. Because apparently that’s what Jack does in his brief reprieves from the never-ending Brazil negotiation. She sighs and opens the cover obligingly.

Jack settles his head on her now bare stomach, tickling her deliberately. Sam’s hand reaches out to still him with a practiced indulgence. He elects to relax under it and let his eyes droop closed. Truth be told, Brasilia is just as exhausting as Geneva is. George set a terrible precedent staying on full-time after he hung up the uniform. Remind him to be upset about that.

Sam’s eyes linger along the hero on her stomach. “And now I’m reading it again,” She explains to herself quietly. Jack’s tired nod deliberately tickles her. Again. She shifts her hand to see his closed eyes. “You have _the weirdest_ fantasies.”

Tickle-nod.

It’s okay; she can play that game. “Hmm… ‘Moreover, we can also see that the detuned Hanle scans have interesting features in their own right.’” Sam nods curiously into the random page. “‘For instance, if the atomic Doppler width is negligible and the laser is monochromatic, then the results display defined Zeeman resonances.’ My, that is interesting.” In that she basically remembers what a Zeeman resonance is. Sam keeps her face contemplative.

Jack blinks sleepily at her feigned-studious features. Wow, how had he not seen this one coming?

“‘We also see in figure eleven that the contrast between the Gaussian and Lorentzian spectral profile data matches that of a coherently driven dispersive cavity exhibiting cubic nonlinearity.’” Sam pauses in mock thought. His dazed look is more than worth the excessive ad libbing. “‘The reader observes that the data is identical in (a) and (b), and was obtained with a laser intensity…’”

 _Oh God._ “Saaaam.” Jack doesn’t whine: Secretary-Generals don’t whine. His former 2IC grins too triumphantly. This happens be a particularly gorgeous smile, which is clearly cheating. “You know you’re really hot when you talk geek.” He almost misses his cheater’s stutter. “But I think you mean the data _are_ identical.”

Sam lifts her knee exasperatedly and tumbles his head further up her torso. He’s not complaining.

“And how’s the belated visual, Mr. Secretary-General?”

Jack sets his head back upright and gazes over her in mock discernment. “Better than hockey.”

Sam smiles too thankfully for the playfulness. “You sure? The Capitals are looking pretty good this year. Not to mention younger and with fewer broken bones.”

Jack traces a long scar under her shirt. Well, his shirt. “I’m sure.” He is absolutely, positively positive.

She smirks. “It’s ok, you know. I was in way better shape back on the team, too.” She flexes and it makes his head bob a good couple inches.

Jack just barely manages to nod casually. He concentrates on tracing around her stomach by memory.

Sam shrugs. “Your loss. Brooks Laich is sexy.”

Jack jerks his head upwards in mock affront. He needs to have a word with the colonel that taught her this much sarcasm.

Sam pretends to ignore him and looks for another suitably incomprehensible paragraph. For all her lack of practice, she really can get him pretty good these days.

“Wait,” he asks as she clears her throat.

_Hah._

Jack flips her to some later page. “This is my favorite part.”

 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for visiting the _E Pluribus Unum_ trilogy! We’ll now be returning to _Hit the Sky_ , which doesn’t have quite the same fanon: we’ll pick up with Sam meeting Jack off base for the ‘first time’. (Because maybe I enjoy these scenes too much.) As per _Hit the Sky_ , Sam doesn’t come to dinner before she and Daniel bond and end up dissecting the staff weapon with Teal’c and Janet.
> 
> We’re leaving our future couple a little abruptly, but I suspect 15YearsLater!Jack has a soft spot for sentimental fantasies. Will might show up again, too. I think maybe he asks out Kerry Johnson.


End file.
